Harriet Said...

Blurb

Harriet Said... was the first novel written by Beryl Bainbridge, based on newspaper reports the Parker–Hulme murder case in New Zealand which involved two young girls.
Although completed in 1958 it was rejected by several publishers in the late fifties, one of whom wrote on the flyleaf of a first edition:
what repulsive little creatures you have made the two central characters, repulsive almost beyond belief! And I think the scene in which the two men and the two girls meet in the Tsar's house is too indecent and unpleasant even for these lax days. What is more, I fear that even now a respectable printer would not print it!.
The manuscript was thought lost but was found by one publisher, returned to the author and finally published by Duckworth in 1972, and by George Braziller in the US the following year.